Hacking for Artists

Swirling wall of moving patterns represents our thoughts By Andy Coghlan Video credit: Engram: Data Sculpture for Melting Memories from Refik Anadol WHAT resembles the wall of an exotic underground grotto is actually a work of art representing the circuitry of the brain in action. Engram / Remember is an incredible moving spectacle, forged from algorithms that convert data about brainwave activity into captivating imagery – this image shows just a single frame. The high-resolution screen starts off showing what seems to be a piece of paper ripping and folding into itself, then morphs into swirling shapes that wriggle and squirm around in an imaginary box. Artist Refik Anadol creates his “data paintings” and other works at the Neuroscape Laboratory at the University of California in San Francisco. Advertisement The artwork is part of the Melting Memories exhibition, recently displayed at the Pilevneli Gallery in Istanbul, Turkey. Refik Anadol/refikanadol.com Photographer Refik Anadol/refikanadol.com More on these topics:

Generative Art “… no one, not even Benoit Mandelbrot himself [...] had any real preconception of the set’s extraordinary richness. The Mandelbrot set was certainly no invention of any human mind. The set is just objectively there in the mathematics itself. The recent proliferation of 3D fractals, in particular the Mandelbox and Mandelbulb, got me thinking about the reality of these systems. I started out by citing Roger Penrose. In Penrose’s model, there are three distinct worlds: the physical world, the mental world (our perception of the physical world), and the cryptic Platonic world. Designer World by David Makin Roger Penrose is a highly renowned mathematician and physicist, and I value his opinions and works highly. Personally, I subscribe to the less exotic formalist view: that the mathematical truths are the theorems we can derive by applying a set of deduction rules to a set of mathematical axioms. Mandelballs by Krzysztof Marczak [Mandelbox / Juliabulb mix] Teeth by Jesse

images, notes et mouvements » Terminale extension (suite en ligne) » images, notes et mouvements Netartophilie Le netart a du exister un bref instant dans la tête de quelques-uns il y a une douzaine d’années, quand dire netart ne servait à rien. Dès lors qu’il y a eu l’envie que soit accordée aux pratiques une légitimité dans le monde de l’art les libertés se sont estompées, les clans se sont formés, la rhétorique est venue nourrir les conflits et les bavardages. De tous temps des artistes ont couru vers les nouvelles technologies. Les pratiques artistiques qui utilisent internet ont pris le pli de bien des mouvements classiques de l’histoire de l’art : le netart minimal, le netart médiatique, le netbodyart, le netart support-surface, le netart conceptuel… les artistes ont aussi bien réfléchi la forme que le fond, les spécificités médiatiques que le contexte informatique. D’un côté, certains (artistes, journalistes, théoriciens…) soutiennent une pensée théorique. Mais finalement, vu de l’extérieur, il se passe quoi ? Internet est l’un moyen qui sert ma démarche. Alors le netart ?

Harvest, clean cryptocurrencies for climate change Julian Oliver, one of the main writers of the ‘Critical Engineering’ manifesto, has never given up on producing artworks with a concrete side, both universally applicable and opening a space of awareness and sense of contradiction in the public. “Harvest” once more possesses these qualities. It uses a 2m wind turbine connected to a (weatherproof) computer, which is connected to the internet through a 4G uplink. Julian Oliver – Harvest Libraries Code: ProcessingData library Source, Exported library (ZIP) During my CIID workshop I did a quick hack to make the Processing 2.0 Data API available for 1.5.1 users. The processing.data code from the 2.0 core needed only a few minor adaptations. The data classes are one of the best features of 2.0, cleanly written and consistent as they are. The code can be found on my Teaching repo on GitHub, the exported library can be downloaded as a ZIP file. Disclaimer: Minimal testing was performed, any issues should be reported on GitHub. Code, data, GitHub, processing.org, teaching Workshop: Advanced Processing – Geometry and animationSat June 29th, Park Slope, NYC Processing is a great tool for producing complex and compelling visuals, but computational geometry can be a challenge for many coders because of its unfamiliar logic and reliance on mathematics. Participants will learn advanced strategies for creating generative visuals and motion in 2D/3D. Suitable for: Intermediate to advanced.

Internet Art ‘Superlative … surely the most worthwhile title to come along from Thames & Hudson’s World of Art series in a very long time’ – Art Monthly ‘Offers a wide canvas, a wealth of detail, and is bright with illustrations’ – The Burlington Magazine An exploration of the exciting and radical ways in which artists have embraced the internet and redefined the conventions of art. This groundbreaking book is the perfect guide to the many forms of internet art and the tools and equipment used to create them, as well as the cultural and historical importance of the work. The authoritative text and over 200 illustrations cover email art, web sites, artist-designed software and projects that blur the boundaries between art and design, political activism and communication. Artists, curators and critics offer insiders' perspectives, while a timeline and glossary provide easy-to-follow guides to the key works, events and technological developments that have taken art into the twenty-first century.

Surreal X-Ray Photographs Reveal Hidden Beauty in Nature Our human eyes may be limited by visible light, but the work of physicist and artist Arie van 't Riet gives us a glimpse into the invisible universe around us. In exploration of nature’s hidden anatomy, Riet uses x-ray imagery on naturalistic compositions, or bioramas, created from flora and fauna. The challenging photography process requires Riet to experiment with different levels of x-ray energies to achieve the right amount of contrast in each image. Riet, who is a registered medical physicist, first became interested in x-ray photography when a colleague asked him to make an x-ray of a painting. Impressed by the results, Riet experimented with similarly thin materials starting with a bouquet of tulips. The production process begins with a black-and-white silver bromide x-ray image, which he then digitizes and inverts on his computer. In addition to flora, Riet added dead animals such as birds and frogs to enliven and add interest to each composition. + Arie van ‘t Riet

Parasitic Design - a vvvv beginners cookbook dear beginners, with the rise of generative design (and a bit late) vvvv wants to get its share of the buzz. so in its long tradition of copying the best it gives to you: Parasitic Design a series of demo-patches with detailed explanations that closely resemble the output of their originals which are the processing-examples that come with the which btw. is available in english and french now! over the course of the next few weeks we'll release most of the examples of their P chapter (>60) reimplemented as vvvv patches for your studying pleasure. they work nicer with the book at hand but also without the book you should be able to learn by just inspecting the patches. looking through the examples you'll notice that some of them are not really suitable to demonstrate the strengths of vvvv. nevermind. those examples are there for all of us to find out more about vvvvs weaknesses. we left out only a few that we found too embarrasing to implement..